A disabled New Jersey woman says she was left outraged after an upscale restaurant served her a birthday dessert with a message referencing her disability.
Antonia Sinibaldi was celebrating her 29th birthday with friends and family at Blu on the Hudson in Weehawken, New Jersey, in June.
Toward the end of the evening, she decided to order an Apple Tart Tatin for dessert.
‘Happy Birthday…’
When it arrived, written across the plate in sauce were the words “Happy Wheelchair Birthday.”
Sinibaldi said no one in her party requested the message and that the other birthday desserts they received did not have similar writing.
“Not to complain about a fairly new restaurant in my town, but why would you make my dessert say this?” she wrote on Instagram. “What was written on my plate probably set my employee off more than me. I would never expect that in my town.”
She said the server appeared uncomfortable while delivering the dessert but did not explain the message.
Sinibaldi told the Hudson Post that she was diagnosed with an incomplete cervical spinal injury at age 2 after a car accident and is paralyzed from the neck down.
She said she was confused by the message and didn’t understand why a restaurant would put it on her birthday dessert.
Her body, she said, reacted before she could process what had happened.
“Body started shaking, body started spasming. My body reacted faster than my mouth or mind,” Sinibaldi told WNBC.
Sinibaldi and her group then spoke with a manager. She said the restaurant offered her a complimentary drink but did not apologize or explain why the message had been written on the plate.
Restaurant Reacts
The restaurant has since offered an explanation.
Blu on the Hudson told WNBC that the word “wheelchair” was used to identify the table where the birthday dessert was supposed to be delivered. “Unfortunately, that notation was misunderstood and was written on the plate itself,” the restaurant explained.
The restaurant said there was “absolutely no malicious or disrespectful intent” behind the notation but acknowledged how the message could have been offensive.
“We fully understand how seeing that word written on a plate could be deeply hurtful and upsetting,” the restaurant said.
Blu on the Hudson said it will take steps to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
But Sinibaldi remains unpersuaded by the explanation.
“It offended me. This whole thing doesn’t sound real,” she told WNBC.
Atlanta Black Star reached out to Sinibaldi for comment but had not heard back at the time of publication.
